Protect and serve

If the cops want to put the screws to a suspect but don't have enough information to ensure a conviction, they often arrest the suspect's girlfriend and have Child Protective Services take their kids away (since both parents are now in jail). This occurs even when they know the girlfriend hasn't done anything wrong. The idea is to scare the suspect into confessing "in exchange" for having the girlfriend let go and the kids returned home.

The police can detain anybody they want for 72 hours as long as they can claim there might possibly be something going on. If it turns out after three days that no charges are filed against that person - because, of course, there's nothing to file charges about - the person is released. In the meantime, lives have been disrupted, jobs have been lost (minimum-wage employers are not known for being patient when an employee fails to show up on account of being in jail), and kids have been taken away by CPS. All the police have to do is say there might be drugs in the home, or that the person they're arresting looks like somebody who is suspected of a crime, or something along those lines.

The thing is, the 72 hours in jail don't include nights or weekends or holidays. So if they pick somebody up on a Thursday night, then Friday is a holiday, and then there's the weekend, the person could be sitting in jail, uncharged, from Thursday night until the following Wednesday. This is a person who police know has done nothing wrong, and the goal is to pressure some other person, who may or may not have done anything, to confess.

Even though confessions made under these circumstances are, obviously, less than totally reliable, they go a long way towards getting the confessor convicted. If you were on a jury and heard that the defendant had confessed to the crime, wouldn't you figure that he must be guilty, since innocent people don't confess? Defendants in that situation often won't even go to trial, since the confession is so damning, and instead they'll take a plea bargain.

Either they're stupid, or they're stupid

In this state, if you register your car but don't yet have plates for the car, the DMV sometimes gives you temporary proof of registraion in the form of a big sticker with a number corresponding to the month through which the car is registered. (So if a car without plates is driving around with a big "5" in the back window, you know it's been registered through May.)

We've lately had a rash of clients who have been pulled over by police for not having registration tags, even though the big number sticker is clearly displayed in the back window.

In theory, cops have to have some kind of reasonable suspicion or probable cause or something to pull people over. If they have reason to believe that you're speeding or driving a getaway car, fine, but they can't just pull a person over for no reason whatsoever.

But in practice, cops pull people over all the time for being "suspicious looking" (read: dark-skinned or poor white trash-y), then come up with something after the fact to justify the stop. For example, cops often say that a defendant's tail light was out (even when it wasn't) if questioned about why they pulled that person over.

Another favorite is claiming that the defendant's car didn't have a registration sticker. But these cars have proof of registration right there in the back window. So either the cops don't know what a temporary registration looks like, or else the cops just aren't able to come up with a better after-the-fact excuse.

(By the way, this matters because if the cop doesn't have a good reason for having stopped the defendant, any evidence found as a result of that stop must be suppressed. A simple way to think of it is that allowing in evidence that cops got by doing something bogus would only serve to encourage cops to do more bogus things.)

Overheard

A prosecutor turned to one of the public defenders I work with during a brief court recess and said to him, "I'm glad I don't have your job. Your clients sometimes go to jail even when they haven't done anything wrong."

11-year-old felon

This morning I did intake for an 11-year-old boy. The boy had gone with his 13-year-old brother to drop off a bike at the brother's friend's house.

Two of the brother's other friends were with them, and one of those friends decided to break into the house to steal guns. He knew the guns were there because the kid who lived there had shown them to him before. The brother's friend wanted the guns in order to kill eight specific people who he believed were giving his girlfriend a hard time.

The brother's friend couldn't find the "real" guns, so he took a bunch of BB guns. This older kid made the 11-year-old take a bag of plastic BBs from the house. The 11-year-old's older brother didn't take anything and was urging the others to get out of the house.

Both the 11-year-old and his 13-year-old brother are charged with felony second degree burglary.

Mom's a thief

Mom goes with her two kids to a discount grocery store. She shoplifts a bottle of Children's Dimetapp cold medicine. When stopped by the security guard, she gave the medicine back, cried, and explained that she took it because her kids needed it and she couldn't afford to buy it.

The store calls the cops. Mom is charged with petty theft and second degree commercial burglary. She does community service, but through some genuine misunderstanding and bureaucratic glitches, she's short by one hour when the deadline for completing the community service rolls around.

Public Defender pleads with District Attorney to have a little understanding. D.A. replies, "She committed a crime, she had her chance to make up for it, and she failed. It's that simple." Mom is now going to jail.

Sad

This fellow lost his job, which led to him losing his house, his marriage, and even his pets. He moved back in with his parents and was completely despondent.

One night he drank too much and lost it. He went into his parents' bedroom and demanded to know why his father, who'd been sleeping quietly all night, had just woken him up. He found a gun that his father kept hidden in the house and shot a kitchen cabinet.

When police arrived, he ran out to the front porch and waved the gun around in the air, begging the cops over and over to shoot him because he wanted to die. Several minutes later, after this guy no longer had the gun, four cops tackled him, broke his arm, and took him to the psych ward.

He was charged with the felony of threatening an officer, with a charge enhancement based on having a gun.

Rolling back rights, every day.

Client gets into an argument with his girlfriend inside a Wal-Mart. The argument continues out into the parking lot. A store manager follows the couple outside and asks the girlfriend if he should call the cops; she says no. The manager calls the cops anyway. Client did nothing violent; he was just in a yelling match with his girlfriend.

Client started talking on his cell phone and walking away to be by himself. He eventually comes back to the parking lot and gets in the passenger seat of the car, still on the phone. The cops (two 22-year-old rookies) arrive. They reach around the soft-top of the Client's car, unlock the door from the inside, drag the client out of the car, then throw him to the ground and start beating him.

The cops pepper-sprayed Client twice (once when he was already in handcuffs), struck him in the ribcage with their batons, kneed him in the back, stood on him, and - the coup de grace - applied the carotid restraint, which involves cutting off the blood flow to the brain, depriving the brain of oxygen and causing unconsciousness.

So here it is: the cops choked an innocent man to the point of unconsciousness in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Client, who struggled against the cops as they beat him, is charged with "resisting an officer in the lawful performance of his duties."

From the transcript of a preliminary hearing

"She" is a 50-year-old grandmother named Loretta who was upset because the cops were tackling her son, who hadn't done anything wrong.
"Q" is the prosecutor.
"A" is a very young rookie cop.

Scene: Parking lot, Christmas time, just after taking the grandkids to get their photos taken at the Wal-Mart portrait studio.

Q. Did you yourself observe [Loretta] pick up a knife?
A. No.
Q. When she ran, you indicated you went after her, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Can you describe what happened at that point?
A. She ran in and around some cars and I followed.
Q. Was she carrying anything at that time by way of a purse?
A. She was carrying a purse and a cane.
Q. And a cane?
A. Yes.
Q. Was she using the cane?
A. When she was running away, no. It was under one of her arms.
Q. And did she respond to your statements as you testified?
A. When I got close enough to her to grab her, she told me she was going to kick me in my nuts.
Q. And did she in fact attempt to do that at that point?
A. No.
Q. What did she do?
A. I backed away and gave her a burst of pepper spray.
Q. Did you believe her when she said she was going to do that to you?
A. Yes.
Q. And when you used the pepper spray, what happened?
A. It had a minimal effect. I was able to grab her and gain minimal control and force her to the ground.
Q. Were any other officers involved in this effort to take her into custody?
A. A citizen was, no officers.
Q. A citizen helped you?
A. Yes, get the cane away from her once we hit the ground.
Q. And what happened? What did you have to do to actually take her into custody?
A. I ended up pepper spraying one more time in order to get her hand.
Q. Was she struggling with you?
A. Yes, she was.
Q. What was she going with her arms and hand?
A. She was keeping them at her body and failing around with her feet and legs.
Q. About how long did it take you before you were able to actually get her under control?
A. I'd say approximately one minute, maybe two.
Q. Did you at some point get her under control and place her in cuffs?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Did you receive the assistance of other officers?
A. Not right then.
Q. Now, at some point did Loretta in fact carry out her threat to you to do injury to your person?
A. Yes. While I was carrying – Well, I was escorting her to my car. She grabbed me, my testicles, in both of her hands and squeezed them.
Q. Did you feel pain?
A. Yes.
Q. For what period of time was she able to actually do that? If you can give me an estimate --
A. A few seconds.
Q. What did you do to get away from the grasp?
A. Threw her forward, and I bent over in pain.
Q. So you had to push her forward?
A. Yes.
Q. And then you bent over?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. Was – Did she say anything else to you about her efforts to injure your person?
Q. As she hit the ground, without me saying anything she said she didn't grab anything because I didn't have anything to grab.
A. I have no other questions at this time, Your Honor.